Dreamscarred Press Announces - Dawnborn RPG Open Alpha!

[Lord_Gareth]

The sun doesn't rise at dusk. It rises after the long night.

Welcome to Dawnborn, folks. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Jade Ripley, with Dreamscarred Press. For awhile now we've been asked when we're going to make our own RPG system, and what it'd be like. Here it is, ladies and gentlemen, starting up for an early public alpha.

You can find the initial playtest packet here!

Who's Dreamscarred Press?
Dreamscarred Press made its name publishing third-party content compatible with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. You may remember us from such conversions as psionics, or Path of War. Now we're branching out into making our own system.

How long will playtesting go on for?
Until the damn thing is done. We did testing for more than two years on Path of War: Expanded and that was just a supplement. We want this to be done /right/, and that means treating it with patience.

What's the game about?
You take on the role of parahumans (there's another word you'd know for this, but it's owned, so...them's the breaks) in a world where evil won its great victory a long time ago. After more than a thousand years of the Endless Night, you - the Dawnborn - have emerged to make one last fight for hope.

These mechanics look a lot like Mutants and Masterminds
Yep. Our mechanical base is in the OGL content for Mutants and Masterminds, but that's just so we can get a working pitch going. Right now potentially ANYTHING is up for change - ability scores (number and function), powers, skills, how EXP works, literally just about anything except the pitch for the setting is up for critique and alteration.

Who's heading this up?
The original pitch for Dawnborn was done by Andreas Ronnqvist. Our mechanics lead is Matt Meideiros; I'm our worldbuilding lead. I'll also probably be the guy tossing your feedback to internal and asking you to expand on your critique.

I'm on deck to field further questions, comments, feedback, and discussion. Strap yourselves in, folks, we're in for the long haul - and thanks for stoppin' by.

[MisterKaws]

Just one thing I noticed at the start, the degrees of failure are separated by six points, not five.

If you don't believe me, just count this:

29
28
27
26
25
24

Edit:

Something you should fix ASAP on skills:

Any skill not noted as “Trained” can be used without
any skill points invested in it (for the purposes of this
playtest, if a Dawnborn has the skill on their statblock,
they have ranks in it) but they only use their ability
score modifier and take a -5 penalty on the check due
to lack of experience.

[Milo v3]

Considering the "These mechanics look a lot like Mutants and Masterminds" thing, what is the actual mechanical aim that would distinguish it from M&M? What sort of things is this going to focus on so that it's not just a campaign setting?

[Grek]

What Genre is this? "Parahuman" makes me want to say superheroes, but what I can see of the setting says fantasy.

[Milo v3]

What Genre is this? "Parahuman" makes me want to say superheroes, but what I can see of the setting says fantasy.

Have you ever played Exalted? I'd imagine the dawnborn are more Exalted than they are Superman. Though I might be completely wrong.

[Anonymouswizard]

As far as I can tell it's essentially just Mutants and Masterminds with a fresh coat of paint. Why would I buy your game when I could essentially do the same thing by taking my copy of Mutants and Masterminds and restricting it to say PL3?

Setting wise, the two big things it's reminding me of is Midnight with the Exalted added in (specifically the Solars). This isn't a problem, I like Midnight, but it's not going to see me on buying this over The Dark Eye or Feng Shui (both of which offer me something I don't already have). I'll admit I haven't had time to read the setting bit in detail at the moment so I hope the details do sell me, but the basic pitch just doesn't interest men.

So my big question is, do you have a unique selling point for your system and/or setting? As The Giant once said, trying to break into the market with 'Thing X, only better' is a sucker's bet.

[Lord_Gareth]

What Genre is this? "Parahuman" makes me want to say superheroes, but what I can see of the setting says fantasy.

One of the words in your question is a word we're not legally permitted to use. 'Parahuman' is a substitute for that word; Dawnborn mixes that genre with fantasy.

So, announcement: as has been mentioned, the M&M mechanics are/were a placeholder. The bossman wanted the sample of the fluff and adventure out and felt that would be more important; he was not correct. Our Mechanics Team is getting their end around so we can show off where we're heading in terms of playing the game; we can only ask your patience.

[MisterKaws]

What Genre is this? "Parahuman" makes me want to say superheroes, but what I can see of the setting says fantasy.

As dumb as it sounds, the word "Superhero" is patented. It's co-owned by DC and Marvel if I recall correctly.

[Air0r]

As dumb as it sounds, the word "Superhero" is patented. It's co-owned by DC and Marvel if I recall correctly.

Apparently I can't post links yet.

That said, I'd actually kinda like to avoid calling them superheroes anyway, or even parahumans for that matter; if you are going for a more fantasy setting then a fantastical naming convention. Maybe something like: The Illuminated (as an example).

[Anonymouswizard]

Apparently I can't post links yet.

That said, I'd actually kinda like to avoid calling them superheroes anyway, or even parahumans for that matter; if you are going for a more fantasy setting then a fantastical naming convention. Maybe something like: The Illuminated (as an example).

*cough* Solars *cough*

No, seriously, all I can see here is 'Exalted, but in a dark world*', which really isn't that engaging as a premise (sorry if this is oversimplifying it a lot). I've seen this kind world done really well in the Midnight setting for 3.X, which worked as it DIDN'T have epic heroes, you had a background path thing but you basically began as a normal dude (although Midnight really deserved it's own system, it's the one case I've seen where D&D maintains low level feel to high levels**).

On the other hand Exalted works as fantasy superheroes as the world hasn't fallen under darkness yet (for what it's worth Exalted is a brilliant name for Fantasy superheroes, it gets across the idea of greatness in two syllables). Sure, superhero settings can work in darkness, but superheroes away from the appeal of a dark setting.

* Which I don't like, although ironically is the kind I'm best at generating (until I have to deal with politics).
** For those who dont know, spells cost 1SP per spell level, but most people only got SP equal to their spellcasting modifier (Channelers and certain background Archetypes got more). I think it maxed out at the early 30s if you tried for maximum.

[Air0r]

MECHANICS SUGGESTIONS
If mechanics aren’t solid yet, I have some suggestions I can toss your way (I take rejection well, so fret not):
what if there were classes that acted solely as frameworks for how you spend your points leveling, but also didn’t restrict your selections.
Example: mage class would have a point discount for magic stuff, but martial endeavors and athletics related stuff would be more expensive. so you could pick Mage but dump all your points into fighting with swords, but it would likely be inefficient.
on the flip-side a Warrior class could be throwing all their points into magic stuff, even though it would be more efficient to go with martial stuff.
Am I way off base on your mechanics goal here?

An idea that came to me from a webcomic (that I discovered through someone's sig): what if powering your powers required an energy source, generally the environment, but nor necessarily. so you would need Heat energy to fuel your fire powers. and you could use your fire powers to set the things in your environment on fire to generate more heat. But maybe you level is the limit of how much you can utilize at one time, or even store semi-long-term.

Actually expanding on the idea, storing too much of your energy (assuming the energy is being stored or is internal to begin with) could be bad.
Let’s keep using heat as an example: store too much heat and you could catch on fire. Store too much cold and you could start to slow down and maybe even freeze.
So a mechanic for releasing your energy besides using your power could exist.

Even further though: what if there was a risk of your power controlling you instead of the other way around.